I’m not sure how I missed this book when it first came out in 2023, but it’s been heavily recommended ever since. When I heard there was a series based on the book coming to Disney+/Hulu this August, I knew I wanted to read the book first before watching the series. It’s totally brilliant – a twisted, gripping story of insanely rich, privileged and highly unlikeable high school students living in LA and grappling with their social lives, at the same time as a sadistic killer is on the loose. It’s witty, self-aware, eerie, terrifying and completely addictive – I couldn’t put it down (mainly because I was too scared and needed to know what happened so I could fall asleep). The TV series has disappointed me so far, but the book is absolutely well worth a read this summer. – Olivia Morelli, digital features editor

The undisputed book of the summer, Yesteryear probably needs no introduction. To date, more than 1.4 million copies have sold, and it’s been an international bestseller since its release in April. For a debut novel, it has generated almost unheard-of buzz and truly captured the zeitgeist. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy, which meant I could enjoy it without the noise, my opinion unclouded by the ‘discourse’. I gobbled it up over three evenings: a moreish, sharp and funny book that captures so many of the paradoxes created by the scarcity and abundance of modern American culture. A dark Tradwife satire is an instant yes from me as a concept, and Burke does it justice, making it readable, unexpected and, crucially, worthy of all the buzz. – Chloe Laws, acting senior audience development manager

In my opinion, few novel formats are more enchanting than the intergenerational weaving of family narratives, and Mongrel, the debut novel by British-Japanese author Hanako Footman, is a masterful example. Footman portrays three women – Mei, Yuki, and Haruka – as they navigate the complexities of womanhood, diaspora, sexuality, and relationships. I followed the twists and turns of each character’s life on tenterhooks; the stories are so poignantly written that I was even moved to tears at several points. If you are a fan of Pachinko, this is the perfect recommendation for you. A total page-turner ideal for a holiday – the only problem is that you might finish it before your plane even touches down. – Lucy Bruton, social media manager

This book completely bowled me over. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel reading an epistolary novel, and it did take me a while to embrace the stilted, time-jumping nature of the book’s structure, but wow, this is a real corker of a book. The storyline follows Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer and chief clerk, who writes letters to her friends, family, authors of books she loves, and about anyone who strikes her fancy. She is incredibly intelligent, with harsh, unsympathetic views and a no-nonsense attitude. Virginia Evans manages to create such narrative depth in the story, with incredible insight into Sybil’s mind, despite the reader only accessing snapshots of her life. It’s an emotional read, despite Sybil’s tendency to underplay her own emotional responses, so fair warning if you’re planning to read it on the beach. – Olivia Morelli, digital features editor

I don’t think I’ve ever run to buy a book faster than I did Careless People, after hearing that Meta had made repeated attempts to suppress it. Sarah Wynn-Williams, who served as Facebook’s director of global public policy between 2011 and 2017, published this whistleblowing memoir last year about her time at the company, alleging a toxic culture of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Ironically, Meta has given her an endless supply of publicity through its attempts to gag her story: at the Hay Festival, she was forced to sit in silence during a panel discussion, after which sales of the book increased by more than 300 per cent. It’s an eye-opening, often rage-inducing read, and a particularly relevant one given how many of us use Meta’s apps and products. – Chloe Laws, acting senior audience development manager

I heard about Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel, Land, from CNT’s own features editor, Olivia Squire. She had just interviewed the Hamnet author for our new Sense of Place series, in which authors talk about the importance of location in their work. Set in Ireland in the mid 1800s, Land is an epic tale following a family in the aftermath of the Great Famine, as each family member struggles to figure out who they are and what they want from their life. It veers on magical realism but somehow stops short of falling into anything truly supernatural, instead toeing the line between folk tales, mythology and hopeful imagination. It’s beautifully written and utterly immersive, and despite leaning on some heavy themes of grief, poverty, displacement and fear, still leaves you feeling warm, hopeful, and touched by the power of love – romantic love, familial love, the love of a dog and the love of one’s home. – Olivia Morelli, digital features editor

This autumn, Jamaica’s most deft therapist-slash-writer Marlon James is back with the Booker-longlisted The Disappearers, and I got a sneak peek of this sprawling, involving, forensic examination of the byways of queer Kingston in the summer of 1988. I also jumped at the chance to interview James on the subject (his 2007 novel The Book of Night Women is one of the most haunting and possessing novels in the female voice that I’ve encountered by man or woman). Don't expect The Disappearers to be a breezy summer read – this is the powerhouse that is Marlon James. It is based on the true (but undocumented) story of a murder, and the mobbing and disappearance of a company of gay actors. It's told over almost two decades through the prism of multiple points of view (something he is gifted at). James’ research (something else he is gifted at) was conducted primarily through interviews with people involved in and on the fringes of the real story. He sees himself, he told me, as a “journalist for imagined people”. As if echoing his research methods, he tells the tale via shards of interviews, scraps of diary episodes, and letters. This is a detective story, an examination of the aftermath of violence and a reckoning with Jamaica’s famous homophobia. – Lydia Bell, senior features editor

As London has sweltered and groaned under the oppressive weight of successive heatwaves this summer, I’ve been unable to get Ian McEwan’s latest “climate novel” – a dry name for such unsettling stuff – out of my mind. I read it sprawled on parched parkland and in front of the whir of electric fans, wondering how much his fictional prediction of a post-catastrophe world might have in common with our very real future. Half the book is set in 2119, when rising sea levels and tsunamis have reduced the UK to a series of archipelagos. Travel between islands is grinding and uncomfortable; biodiversity has diminished to a whisper of its former glory; and those who have survived live out a curiously mundane and muted – albeit more mindful – existence, looking back on the dazzling, irresponsible brilliance of our own era with both awe and contempt. It’s from this perch that a literature professor obsesses over a lost poem penned in 2014, from where the second half of the novel takes place with the unravelling of a domestic drama. At an event earlier this year, I heard McEwan talk about how both those who have gone before us and those who are yet to come can only be “shades” to us: all that can matter (and perhaps all we can truly know) is the present. Yet by building a bridge between “us” and “them”, McEwan brings our potential legacy into sharp relief. – Olivia Squire, features editor

Upon being convinced by a friend's recommendation, I picked up this novel in the hopes that it would reignite my enthusiasm for reading again – and it did just that! This isn't your typical light summer read. Set in 1828 Oxford, R.F Kuang's novel is a perfect blend of fantasy and non-fiction, with themes of colonial resistance and revolution. It is a profound reminder of the inequalities that have shaped the institutions we thrive in today, leading you to question whether violence is an indispensable tool for revolution. Characters are so earnestly depicted that their feelings translate to your own, and I found myself heavily weighed by grief as I was nearing the book's end. The writing is vivid and meticulous, so you get totally lost in the narrative. It also manages to convey heavy topics with ease, bringing to light the sheer importance language, translation and identity play in our world today. Whilst this may not be everyone's first choice as a summer read, it certainly allowed me to transport myself into another realm, which is just what was needed to cure my reading slump. – Leeya Mirza, video producer

At over 600 pages, this doorstopper of a book definitely doesn’t pass the beach bag test – but if you’re looking for a compulsive, heartwarming and not-too-taxing summer read, The Calamity Club is well worth squeezing into your suitcase. It’s the long-awaited follow-up to Kathryn Stockett’s blockbuster The Help, and those who loved her first book (or its film adaptation) will recognise many of the same tropes in this tale of a plucky protagonist who defies the status quo in Depression-era Mississippi by banding together with a chorus of female outcasts to run a brothel. Stockett’s moral universe isn’t complicated – it’s no real spoiler to say that the villains get their comeuppance and the innocent are rewarded – but the journey there is tons of fun, with fiery orphan Meg and cynical wallflower Birdie powering the plot accompanied by a beautifully drawn and very funny supporting cast of female characters. I inhaled it over the course of one day-long journey, and felt practically bereft to leave them all behind at the end. – OS

Thirteen years after the event, I found myself delving into the extraordinary world of George Monbiot’s Feral, the book that unwittingly launched a thousand ‘rewilding the self’ retreats. In Feral, the clear-eyed journalist, environmentalist and political activist mourns the great taming of the human race, the suburbanisation of our souls and loss of our inner wild thing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot myself in the summer heat, desperately searching for a water source and finding myself obliged to download QR codes, sign waivers and all sorts just to swim in a lake. It does make me want to cast off the shackles. This summer, my cat has had enough of it too and has rewilded himself, moving out to a derelict rubbish-filled garden frequented by foxes and pigeons, going on the kill and refusing to come back to his furry bed and slippers at all (hopefully it’s only temporary? I’m tracking his antics on neighbourhood WhatsApps). Monbiot charts his youthful episode amid the threatened Yanomami tribe of the Brazilian Amazon, and describes fearsome encounters with waves in the wilder stretches of the Welsh coast. He argues that industrial farming has destroyed British ecosystems and that we need to go the way of rewilding, bringing back the wolves and boar, the lynx et al, and going full throttle for the British safari. In 2013, Monbiot (and other pioneer rewilders like Paul Lister of Alladale, with his plan to bring back wolves to the Highlands) seemed radical, even kooky, but rewilding as a concept is now edging into the mainstream. The argument is well known – but no one documents it as viscerally and compellingly as Monbiot. – LB